Atheists stage festival for anti-religion films

'Evolution: The Musical,' rants by George Carlin, Woody Allen

What is being billed as the first-ever Atheist Film Festival and featuring a large number of films that largely address religion will be held in San Francisco Sunday – and it lumps Jesus along with Zeno, Flying Saucers, The Flying Spaghetti Monster and Eden.

The event in San Francisco’s Mission District is being held in two rooms at the Roxie Theater starting at noon and running to midnight.

Among the features will be “Root of all Evil?” in which famed British atheist Richard Dawkins issues a warning about how faith is “gaining ground in the face of rational, scientific truth.”

Events are being sponsored, among others, by the San Francisco Atheists, who report they, “do not believe in gods, devils, angels, ghosts, or other imaginary creatures.’

According to their website, they “want to live natural, religion-free lives … respect science and learning, knowing that only human thought, effort and courage will bring individual freedom and cultural progress.”

Also featured will be “Pledge of Allegiance Blues,” telling the story of Michael Newdow, who challenged the inclusion of the words “under God” in the Pledge of Allegience all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where he was rebuffed.

The film festival describes his efforts as a battle “to protect the separation between church and state.”

Also on the fare will be a musical called, “Evolution: The Musical, “Heathen Wind,” “Audience of One,” and others, including “rants” by George Carlin, Monty Python and Woody Allen.

Dawkins’ work “takes you to some of the world’s religious hot-spots, both in America and the Middle East. Dawkins meets with religious leaders and their followers, as well as scientists and skeptics to examine the power of religion.”

The Evolution musical is described as “a cross between Hair and the Rocky Horror Picture Show with some Gospel thrown in.”

Comfort, who works with Living Waters ministry and has argued against atheism at Yale University, debated the issue on ABC’s Nightline and has authored some 60 other books, including “God Doesn’t Believe in Atheists,” “How to Know God Exists” and “Evolution: the Fairy Tale for Grownups,” has told WND it’s atheism, not faith, that lacks a foundation in reality.

“I
simply expose atheistic
evolution for the unscientific fairy tale that it is, and I do it with
common logic. I ask questions about where the female came from for each
species. Every male dog, cat, horse, elephant, giraffe, fish and bird had to
have coincidentally evolved with a female alongside it (over billions of
years) with fully evolved compatible reproductive parts and a desire to
mate, otherwise the species couldn’t keep going. Evolution has no
explanation for the female for every species in creation,” he previously told WND.

“I also show that
the ‘God’ issue is moral rather than intellectual. No one needs to prove
that God exists. Creation is clear evidence for any sane person that there’s
a Creator. But if I can convince myself that there is no God, it means I am
not morally accountable, and evolution opens the door to a whole lot of
sinful delicacies such as pornography, fornication, lying, theft, and of
course writing bad reviews for a book I haven’t read,” he continued.

He said the logical problem that follows atheists, though, is that once they convince themselves God doesn’t exist, they are left with the “insane” philosophy that nothing created everything.

“They
will deny that through gritted teeth because it is intellectually
embarrassing, but if I say that I have no belief that my Ford Truck had a
maker, it means I think that nothing made it, and that’s a scientific
impossibility,” Comfort said.

WND reported when Comfort challenged Dawkins to a debate over God’s existence, but Dawkins snubbed offers of both $10,000 and $20,000.